Rockford to add 5 cameras to crime-fighting toolbox

ROCKFORD — The antics of “The Movement,” a group of motorists who weave their vehicles in a pattern while taking up several lanes of traffic, have been well-documented by police.

Chris Green

ROCKFORD — The antics of “The Movement,” a group of motorists who weave their vehicles in a pattern while taking up several lanes of traffic, have been well-documented by police.

Videotape depicting those antics, taken from the department’s street surveillance cameras, helped persuade aldermen this summer to adopt tougher penalties for reckless driving.

The department’s 21 cameras will increase by five this fall, thanks to more than $117,000 in federal grants and proceeds from local criminal asset forfeitures. The money will pay for five cameras able to record activity in a 360-degree span and software to allow the Police Department to link up with eight existing intersection cameras.

The intersection cameras are mounted on traffic light masts. For now, their sole function is to detect the presence of a vehicle and trigger the process of changing a red light to green and vice versa.

The department’s expansion of its 24/7 video surveillance system as well as the installation of a video surveillance room located on the second floor of the Public Safety Building has been a two-year pet project of Deputy Chief Theo Glover.

“I’m very proud of the results we have had, based on the equipment that we have out there,” Glover said.

Sniffed out
In addition to combating erratic driving, the cameras have the potential to have a far greater effect on crime reduction. They will be placed in identified crime hot spots, which can include locations known for “tagging” by graffiti artists to more serious offenses such as locations of calls of shots fired and open-air drug transactions.

“Instead of having officers parked down the street with binoculars looking for drug transactions,” Grover said, “we don’t even have to have the squad there and worry about being sniffed out.”

Nicky Davis, 26, a two-year resident of Concord Commons, walked through the complex at night earlier this week. She said she didn’t know where the security camera was mounted and didn’t feel any safer knowing it might be recording her every move. Asked whether she thought the camera was a crime deterrent, Davis said: “No. It takes police forever to go over the tape.”

The location of the five new cameras has yet to be determined. The vendor, Johnson Controls, headquartered in Milwaukee with offices in Arlington Heights, is taking the Police Department’s desired list of camera locations and is in the process of conducting site line surveys to determine which locations are viable.

The city’s intersection cameras, four per intersection, detect vehicles approaching the intersection. They do not have 360-degree capabilities, which means the Police Department would have to tap into all four cameras at an intersection to view the entire intersection. Therefore, eight city cameras would allow the police to monitor activity at two intersections. Those two intersections also have yet to be determined.

Enough cameras
So with 21 cameras in place, five more cameras coming this fall, and the likely connection to eight city cameras, how many cameras are enough?

And when does seemingly a pretty sound policing tactic encroach upon privacy?

Jules Gleicher, a Rockford College political science professor, said: “Enough is when the relevant authorities determine it is not yielding a sufficient return on their labor.”

Gleicher also said surveillance cameras become an invasion of privacy when they overstep what a judge might consider a reasonable expectation of privacy.

“If the camera is in an open place like an intersection, then the presumption is people are out in the open and in view of whatever they do. ... If the camera is out in the open and positioned to view inside someone’s window then there is a basis to challenge. The key phrase is ‘reasonable expectation of privacy.’”

Glover said the surveillance system will record and store for 21 days before it copies over the footage.

Not a panacea
Perhaps the harshest criticism of surveillance cameras comes not from the public, but from the men and women in blue.

Former police union President Aurelio DeLaRosa said: “Cameras are good for evidence and prosecution, but I’ve never seen a camera stop a crime from happening.”

DeLaRosa made his comment to the Register Star in January 2009 shortly after it was learned about 200 drug users were driving through Concord Commons every Sunday morning with their windows rolled down to receive a free $10 packet of heroin, a token of appreciation by drug dealers to their customers.

DeLaRosa noted at the time the presence of police in the housing authority complex had diminished. Officers were pulled out of the complex to help form a special tactical unit. Cameras were installed, and a private security firm was hired to patrol the development.

Glover has since said the cameras are not a “panacea,” and he said he realizes drug dealers and gang members are likely to move elsewhere.

He’s OK with that.

“If they move (from the hot spot), we can leave cameras there, and focus our manpower on wherever they move to.”

While the Police Department may be only scratching the surface on what the cameras can do, coupled with its ability to link into the city’s network of cameras, Glover said the cameras still are not the department’s best resource.

“The best tool we have is the community partnering with us.”

Reach staff writer Chris Green at cgreen@rrstar.com or 815-987-1241.

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